stirling-1963-vol-1/05_190

Transcription

No. 144 -- ECCLESIASTICAL MONUMENTS -- No. 145
TOMBSTONE. Only one tombstone bears a legible
inscription of earlier date than 1707. This is a headstone,
on the front of which can be read WL MH with WL IC
in monogram at the top: on the back is a sunk panel,
inscribed WL IC / 1705 above an assemblage of mason's
insignia and flanked by the initials WL, MH, AR, ML.

955769 -- NS 97 NE ("Ch.") -- 11 March 1953

144. Manuel Nunnery. The Nunnery stood on the
left bank of the Avon 100 yds. downstream from the
inflow of the Manuel Burn, and the more easterly part
of the site has now been entirely washed away by the
river, as were the S. side-wall and the cemetery in
1783. ¹ All that remains of the Nunnery buildings today
is the N. portion of the W. gable of the church, ² but a
drawing of about 1739 ³ (Pl. 36 C) shows the church as
still entire, although roofless. It appears to have been
a small rectangular block with no structural division
between nave and chancel; the E. wall was pierced by
three large windows with pointed heads. The cloister
seems to have been on the S. entry being obtained by a
doorway centrally placed in the S. wall of the church.
The surviving fragment (Pl. 36 A) is built of large
squared blocks of grey freestone, laid in courses. Its
lower part contains the N. side of the central entrance,
now filled up by a patch; on the inner face of the wall
the three lowest voussoirs of the arch can still be seen,
and on the outer side the base of a small column, the
moulding of which suggests a date in the 12th century.
On the N. this gable wall, which is 4 ft. 1 in. thick,
finished in a buttress which projects 1 ft. 3 in. from the
line of the demolished N. side-wall of the building,
which was only 3 ft. thick. The original breadth of this
gable, over both buttresses, was probably about 22 ft.
to 23 ft. At an upper level the gable was pierced by three
lancet-windows (Pl. 36 B) ⁴ , the northernmost of which is
entire and shows widely chamfered margins; its head is
cut out of a single block and is outlined by a fine groove,
and within it is widely splayed. The N. jamb of the
central lancet can also be seen, with its internal splay on
the line of the vertical S. edge of the surviving structure.
Below the sills of the windows there runs a splayed
intake-course, and just below this there project two
corbels, notched on their upper surfaces to carry the
supporting beam of the roof of a former W. Galilee, all
other trace of which has now disappeared. In the centre
of the gable-head there has been a round window, part
of the N. margin of which is still preserved; below this
there is another string-course, which turns sharply
downwards after passing N. of the head of the lancet
below, and then resumes the horizontal. The inner side
of the gable can be seen in an 18th-century illustration,
now in the Bodleian Library, which is reproduced in
Pl. 36 D. ⁵
Manuel, a house of Cistercian nuns, was founded by
Malcolm IV before 1164, the endowment being con-
firmed by William the Lion a few years later. Little is
known of the history of the Nunnery or of the extent
of its possessions (cf. p. 9), but the house was not
wealthy and the community may always have been a
small one. It is known that Edward III recompensed the
convent for damage caused by his army on its march
towards Perth in the summer of 1335. ⁶ In 1506 a
petition of James IV for the suppression of the house,
on the ground that the nuns were scarcely five in number
and led a life alien to the Cistercian rule, was granted,
but it was evidently not put into effect as a prioress and
four nuns were still in residence in 1552. ⁷

971763 -- NS 97 NE (unnoted) -- 6 March 1953

145. Parish Church, Slamannan. The parish church
(Pl. 38 A), stands on the N. outskirts of the town of
Slamannan, on the slope of some rising ground which
separates the River Avon from its tributary the Culloch
Burn, the motte (No. 179) being about 50 yds. distant
on the top of the rise. It was built in 1810, presumably
on the site of an earlier church, ⁸ though the Ordnance
Survey Name Book ⁹ states that a mound similar to the
motte was levelled to form its site. It is oblong on plan,
measuring 52 ft. 8 in. from E. to W. by 42 ft. 8 in.
transversely over walls 2 ft. 6 in. to 2 ft. 9 in. thick. The
walls are of random rubble with dressed and back-set
margins at quoins and voids, the gables being finished
with tabling. In the N. wall there are two windows below
and two above the level of the gallery, which runs round
three sides of the interior; in the S. wall there are two
rows of four windows, at corresponding heights, the
two middle ones in the lower row being higher and
wider than the rest. Between the two central windows,
there has been reset a damaged dormer-pediment in-
+scribed, in relief, 16 [??] I AM TH [E] LIGH [T] O [F] /
TH [E] W [O] RLD. Below is an incised fragment reading
KEIP MY SABBATH AND [REVE] / RENCE MY SANC-
TUARY LEVIT [XIX 30], and above is an undated
tabular sundial. In each gable there is a door with a
window above it, and on the apex of the W. gable a bell-
cote. The gallery is reached by two internal stairs, one
in each of the N. corners of the building. The pulpit
is in the middle of the S. side; it seems to be of recent
construction though set against a background of older
wood-panelling which forms an arched bay with plain
pilasters, entablature and pediment. In the centre of the

1 Grose, F., The Antiquities of Scotland, ii (1797), 236 (mis-
paged 263).
2 Actually the orientation must have been nearly NE. and
SW.
3 Cardonnel, A., Picturesque Antiquities of Scotland (1788
ed.), 74 f.
4 This drawing was made by Cardonnel in 1789.
5 Bodleian Library, Gough Maps, 40 (17537), fol. 5v.
6 Wardrobe book, Brit. Mus. MS. Cotton, Nero C. viii, fo.
274; Cal. of Docts., iii, No. 1186.
7 This account follows that of Easson, Religious Houses, 123.
8 N.S.A., viii (Stirlingshire), 279 says "rebuilt", but it is
clear that the existing structure is a new one. Cf. Stat. Acct.,
xiv (1795), 87.
9 Slamannan parish, p. 11.

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